


the descent.

by aserenitatum



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Angst adjacent, F/F, Smut adjacent, and not angsty but like, not smutty but like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aserenitatum/pseuds/aserenitatum
Summary: “God, I could use a fuck.”It slips out before Dinah can stop herself, tired but still feeling the faint buzz of adrenaline after a night of fighting crime.Renee cackles as she turns away, shaking her head as she bids them goodnight to go seek refuge in a bottle.Helena remains firmly where she is, unmoving and seemingly unresponsive to Dinah’s words so she’s about to say something else, add to it or explain it away, anything to put Helena at ease when the woman speaks.“I could help you with that.”
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 34
Kudos: 222





	the descent.

**Author's Note:**

> this was titled 'who the fuck knows what this is' so, yknow. 
> 
> set after birds of prey

“God, I could use a fuck.” 

It slips out before Dinah can stop herself, when she sags against the table in the warehouse, tired but still feeling the faint buzz of adrenaline after a night of fighting crime. 

Renee cackles as she turns away, shaking her head as she bids them goodnight to go seek refuge in a bottle. 

Helena remains firmly where she is, unmoving and seemingly unresponsive to Dinah’s words and she’s about to say something else, add to it or explain it away, anything to put Helena at ease when the woman speaks. 

“I could help you with that.” 

The surprise comes first, followed closely by amazement. Helena doesn’t stutter and doesn’t back down from what was clearly a genuine offer, and then the heat sparks low in her belly. 

“Okay,” she says and Helena closes the small distance between them, hand curling around the back of Dinah’s neck as her head dips down and captures Dinah’s lips in a bruising kiss. 

She kisses like she fights but her lips are soft and Dinah melts for her. 

Her touches are sure as she unzips Dinah’s jumpsuit and lets her fingers smooth over the fishnet top underneath, nails hooking into the fabric as she drags a hand over Dinah’s bra with pressure that makes her eyes flutter closed and savour the feeling of being touched by a hand that’s not her own. 

Dinah’s “do you know what you’re doing” dies on her tongue when Helena’s fingers part her folds and explore with skilful strokes that have her panting in a disgracefully short amount of time. 

She comes with a barely audible “fuck” gasped into Helena’s ear, her fingernails digging into the muscles of Helena’s upper arm. 

“Good?” Helena asks, voice level and Dinah has to suppress a laugh. 

“Yes,” she murmurs, limbs heavy. “Thank you.” 

Helena pulls away with a smug little grin, tucks her hands into the pockets of her pants and says, “You’re welcome. Good night, Dinah.” 

It happens again. 

and again. and again. 

Renee pretends not to see the subtle glances as she disappears after missions and in return, Dinah doesn’t mention the drinking. 

She lets Helena press her against a filing cabinet and bruise her neck and fuck her until she’s nothing but short breaths and quivering thighs. 

It’s ridiculous how easy it is, how she’ll glance at Helena mid-fight and their eyes will meet and they know. How they don’t even need to say anything when they’re back at the warehouse as they wait for Renee to leave, never impatient but always restless. How goddamn _good_ Helena is. 

Questions burn at the tip of her tongue but they’re always kissed away by Helena’s masterful mouth and by the time she has enough presence of mind to ask, Helena’s gone with a polite smile and a “good night, Dinah.” 

She figures it out a few weeks into it when she has her legs wrapped around Helena’s head, her fingers woven through dark tresses as her body arches. 

She moans, “Helena — _uh, fuck._ ” 

Helena lifts her mouth to shush her and this time she groans the woman’s name in complaint at the pause. Helena slides up her body and kisses her quiet and Dinah has a moment of clarity where it all clicks into place. 

Renee still calls her Crossbow, like an affectionate nickname that’s hard to shake, and sometimes when she’s feeling really warm-hearted, she’ll call her Killer. But Dinah meant it when she’d complimented the woman at the taco place on her nickname, because Huntress _is_ a badass name, so she calls her that whenever they’re on the job. 

She calls her Huntress and watches as a flame sparks in Helena’s eyes and that night the door hasn’t even slammed shut behind Renee before Helena’s on her knees. 

Dinah finally understands that this arrangement she has isn’t one with Helena — that the woman fucking her into oblivion on a regular basis is Huntress. 

They’re two separate identities. Helena is scarred and quiet and a little awkward and Huntress is bold and self-assured and has the confidence to not only engage with Dinah’s teasing proposition but deliver on it tenfold. 

Dinah learns a lot about Huntress in those weeks working together and _working_ _together._

Dinah knows next to nothing about Helena. 

She doesn’t know what the woman does in her free time, she doesn’t know how she fills her days, she doesn’t even know where Helena lives. She doesn’t know how much she trains, she doesn’t know what Helena did with the money she got off the codes on the diamond, she doesn’t know what Helena’s favourite meal is. She doesn’t know if Helena styles her hair so that it falls perfectly messy over her sharp face, she doesn’t know if Helena’s ever dated anybody, she doesn’t know whether she prefers hot or cold drinks. 

She doesn’t even know what Helena’s skin feels like under her touch. 

Dinah loves the orgasms but she’s starting to hate that it’s Huntress giving them to her when it’s really Helena she’d rather have. 

It feels good to spill over her fingers that aren’t her own. It feels good to come undone over a skilful mouth. It feels good to be pressed against the wall when she’s getting fucked to within an inch of her life. 

It doesn’t feel good to watch Helena pull away with closed-off eyes and it doesn’t feel good to see her walk away with nothing more than a smile and a polite “good night, Dinah” and it really doesn’t feel good that she still craves it despite how hollowed out it leaves her feeling. 

“Do you think I’m attractive?” 

“I think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” Helena says but she doesn’t swoon because the words are rigid like they’re a script that Helena has memorised. 

“Are you attracted to me?” 

“What’s going on?” 

Helena steps away from her and crosses her arms and Dinah stays where she is, jumpsuit unzipped down to her belly button and underwear soaked just from Helena’s thigh having been pressed against her and her legs shift to relieve some of the pulsing tension now that she realises they need to stop this. 

As much as she aches for Helena’s touch, her brain is finally catching up and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore how Helena never lets her reciprocate and how much it feels like this is all just another thing on Helena’s to do list, like a chore that she does quickly, efficiently, and then moves on down the list. 

“Do you like me?” 

“Of course I like you, the—” 

Dinah shakes her head, holds up a hand. 

It’s embarrassing. 

She’s mortified that she’s let this go on for so long and she can see the cloak of Huntress disappear from Helena’s body so she just gives a slow nod. 

“This needs to stop.” 

The muscle in Helena’s cheek jumps when she clenches her jaw, but her head doesn’t dip and her gaze doesn’t move from Dinah and for the very first time since they’ve started doing this, Dinah can see a world of emotion behind those dark, troubled eyes. 

She wonders why it’s the breaking that finally elicits that response. 

“Okay.” 

It’s that easy. 

Helena nods once, straightens her spine, and then turns on her heel and leaves. 

Dinah zips up her jumpsuit and goes home. 

She takes a long shower, warm to soothe her muscles and then cold to shock the arousal out of her system. She’s shivering as she steps out of the shower but when she passes by the mirror she can’t find it in herself to look, afraid to see the trembling that has nothing to do with the cold. 

There’s a knock on the door at 4 am and Dinah doesn’t answer despite being wide awake. 

There’s a second knock, softer this time and Dinah wonders how Helena found out where she lives. 

There’s not a third knock but the strip light coming from the hallway under her door shadows and when Dinah opens the door, Helena almost sprawls backwards onto her welcome mat. 

Helena gets off the floor and wipes at her hands and Dinah tries not to notice Helena’s red eyes. 

“Why?” 

Dinah doesn’t insult Helena by pretending not to know what she’s referring to. 

“You know why.” 

“There’s someone else.” 

It’s not what she’s expecting but on some levels, Helena’s assumption is right. 

“Yes,” she says and Helena’s shoulders curl as the information seems to weigh her down. 

There’s a beat of silence and Helena takes her by surprise again when she asks, “Who?” 

Dinah wants to lie. She wants to play it coy and walk away and keep this part to herself, one of the last fragments of herself that she hasn’t already given to Helena without even noticing it. It’s all she has left and she can’t give Helena everything when she knows she won’t get anything for it in return. 

But her rationale is overruled by the part of her that craves, by the rest of her that thinks she deserves the pain of laying it all bare, by a heart that needs to know even if it breaks her. 

“You.” 

Helena shakes her head, brow furrowing and she takes a step back. 

Dinah lets out a mirthless chuckle. 

“I… I don’t—?” Helena stammers and she looks miles away, lost in thought and for the first time, Dinah notices that she curls her fingers into fists and releases them, over and over again as she tries to sort through her thoughts. “I don’t understand.” 

Confused she may be, but when Dinah pushes open the door, Helena doesn’t hesitate to cross the threshold even if she does stop in the middle of the room, unsure of where to move to. 

“How do you know where I live?” 

“I asked Renee.” 

“And she just gave it to you?” 

Helena breaks out of her thoughts long enough to frown at the words. 

Dinah just crosses her arms over her chest. 

“Yes.” 

“At four in the morning?” 

“I asked a few weeks ago.” 

“Why didn’t you ask me?” 

“I wasn’t sure you liked me enough to tell me.” 

The words should be some sort of revelation, but all Dinah can think is that this is the longest conversation she’s ever had with Helena. 

“I would have told you if you’d just asked,” she finally says. “All you had to do was ask me, Helena.” 

Helena looks so stoic, shoulders rigid and eyes set, but something in her seems to break and Dinah can’t put her finger on it. 

They’re silent for a long while. 

“Okay,” Helena says but Dinah has no idea what she’s saying the words in response to. “Good night, Dinah.” 

Her legs aren’t shaking and her breaths aren’t short and she’s not trying to emerge from a haze of euphoria the way she always is when Helena says the words to her so she finally has the clarity to notice how sad Helena looks, the flicker of grief in her eyes before she turns to go and Dinah wonders how she managed to miss such a loud emotion. 

“Helena—” 

Helena stops with her hand on the door handle, head falling forward and Dinah tries to sort through the growing mess of guilt and longing. 

“Do you like me?” 

Fingers tighten around the handle. 

Dinah knows she’s not leaving. 

“Of course I like you.” 

The words may be whispered to the wood of her front door but Dinah hears them loud and clear, echoing loudly in her mind as she compares this repeated interaction with the one they had at the warehouse and how broken Helena sounds and reconciles it with how broken she’s been feeling all these weeks. 

Helena turns around, back pressed against the door. “I’m not like you.” 

“What does that mean?” she whispers. 

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Dinah’s first instinct is to laugh because if those are comparisons they’re making, Helena couldn’t be further from the truth. 

“You don’t know anything about me,” Dinah says instead, words soft as she tries to convey just how broken of a person she is, how dark her past is, how much blood she has on her hands. “You don’t know what I’ve done.” 

Helena may think she’s a monster because of her fury but she doesn’t know what Dinah’s had to do to survive, doesn’t understand the horror of her powers. 

“You’re still a person,” Helena says. 

“If I’m a person, so are you.” 

They’re at a stalemate and they both know it. 

She may not be good, but Helena seems to think so, enough for her to want a taste and enough to make her scared of asking for more. 

She’s learning that Helena doesn’t ask. It has to be her. 

“Helena, what do you want?” 

“Whatever you—” 

“No,” she cuts off, uncrossing her arms and moving closer, backing Helena up against the door until their noses are almost touching and she can feel the stuttered exhale wash over her face. “What. do. you. want.” 

She looks as terrified as Dinah feels, but she still answers. 

“You.” 

This time Dinah gets to kiss _Helena_ , and she gets to touch and when she wants to moan Helena’s name she doesn’t have to bite her lip. 

Helena moans _her_ name, grips _her_ sheets with wanton need, comes undone for _her_. 

And Helena doesn’t leave after and Dinah gets to see her smile softly and watch the morning sunlight play over her tired eyes and learns that Helena likes sleeping in and kissing her lips and touching her skin. 

Dinah learns that Helena’s not just good in bed — she’s _great_. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! let me know what you think :)


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